Google downgrades Galaxy Nexus to 'coming soon' on Play Store

Injunction or demand for Jelly Bean?

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Google has taken the flagship Galaxy Nexus off sale in the US, which may be due to the recent appeal loss by Samsung over alleged patent infringements raised by Apple.

Google previously dropped the price of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus through its online portal to $349 (around £220) prior to the announcement of Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean), and demand was anticipated to be high as developers looked to get the flagship phone for the new OS.

According to The Verge, Google is maintaining that the Galaxy Nexus will be available next week, but refused to give a reason for it coming off sale in the first place.

There are a few theories about why this may have occurred, with the most worrying centred around the fact Samsung has lost its appeal to have the Galaxy Nexus ban in the US lifted by Judge Koh.

All about Apple

Google has confirmed it has an update coming in the near future that functions as a workaround to the alleged patent infringement on the Galaxy Nexus, which suggests the case is serious enough to warrant removing the phone from sale in the meantime.

However, let's not get too litigation-hasty here; it's perfectly feasible that Google is just pumping the phone full of Jelly Bean juice and is not offering the Samsung Galaxy Nexus for sale in the interim – this is reinforced by the fact the phone is now listed as coming with Jelly Bean on the US portal.

What will this mean for the humble user? Well, if you're not in the US, not that much – you'll still get the full Android search-ability through the Google Search bar (one of the key patents being raised) and there's no hint of the Nexus being shelved in the UK…but we get the feeling this story is a long way from over.